The Security Guard

When I was attending college in my early 20s, I got a job as a security guard for Rite Aid. I was trained in Delancey, a large nice store. Once trained I was put on the late shift and sent out to the store in Tremont Avenue. This store was not so nice, and I really didn’t like working there so late into the evening.

After a few weeks, the store in Fordham Road opened up and they made that my permanent assignment. This shift and the store weren’t as rough as the one in Tremont, but there were a lot of gang members and hooligans here too.

As a security guard, I began to have run ins with these folks. This raised a lot of concerns for me, because I was always stationed there at the store, but had no idea where they were coming from. This meant that they could easily get me, and I didn’t have much recourse to defend myself. Also, I didn’t have a weapon or method of advanced self defense.

If I remember correctly, I was being paid about $6 an hour. To my mind that was totally not worth the risk I was putting myself in. I did the job for a few weeks, and after making a few enemies, I decided to quit. $6 an hour was not worth getting shot over. So I quit that job and focused on my studies.